H-Slavery The Omar Ibn Said Collection at the Library of Congress

Discussion published by Paul Auchterlonie on Wednesday, January 16, 2019

The Library of Congress has acquired and made available online the Omar Ibn Said Collection, which includes the only known surviving slave narrative written in Arabic in the United States. In 1831, Omar Ibn Said, a wealthy and highly educated man who was captured in West Africa and brought to the United States as a slave, wrote a 15-page autobiography describing his experiences.

This manuscript is important not only because it tells the personal story of a slave written by himself, but also because it documents an aspect of the early history of Islam and Muslims in the United States.

The Omar Ibn Said Collection consists of 42 original documents in both English and Arabic, including the manuscript in Arabic of “The Life of Omar Ibn Said” – the centerpiece of this unique collection of texts. Other manuscripts include texts in Arabic by another West African slave in Panama and from individuals located in West Africa.

The collection was digitally preserved and made available online for the first time by the Library of Congress atloc.gov/collections/omar-ibn-said-collection/about-this- collection/

Paul Auchterlonie.

Citation: Paul Auchterlonie. The Omar Ibn Said Collection at the Library of Congress. H-Slavery. 01-16-2019. https://networks.h-net.org/node/11465/discussions/3578588/omar-ibn-said-collection-library-congress Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1